It is known to use nitride compound semiconductors in optoelectronic components such as light-emitting diodes or laser diodes. To produce optoelectronic components of this type, nitride compound semiconductor layers are grown epitaxially onto a substrate. Suitable substrate materials are sapphire, GaN or SiC, for example. Production of these substrate materials is associated with high costs, however.
Epitaxial growth of nitride compound semiconductors on silicon substrates obtainable at low cost is made more difficult by the fact that silicon and nitride compound semiconductors have greatly differing coefficients of thermal expansion. Growth of the nitride compound semiconductor is effected at temperatures of approximately 1000° C. If the layer system thus produced is then cooled, the silicon substrate and the nitride compound semiconductor material contract to differing extents, as a result of which tensile stresses arise, and these can result in damage to the layer structure.
EP 1 875 523 B1 inserts aluminum-containing intermediate layers between a silicon surface of a growth substrate and a functional layer sequence of a layer structure of an optoelectronic component to generate compressive stressing, which compensates for the tensile stresses that arise during cooling, in the layer structure which forms.
It could therefore be helpful to provide an optoelectronic component comprising a layer structure as well as a method of producing a layer structure for an optoelectronic component.